


Hold me like I'm hope

by fandammit



Series: Mouthful of Forevers [3]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Post Punisher season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-03 19:39:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13348134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandammit/pseuds/fandammit
Summary: What he means to say next is: you look well, and then grin because he knows she’ll catch the allusion; or else, it’s good to see you, because it is – even if those words seem wholly understated for this moment.What he says instead is: “You look beautiful,” then freezes, because that’s exactly what he didn’t mean to say.The words roll off his tongue easily, like he’s said them a hundred different times. He guesses that, in a way, he has. Has imagined saying it to her dozens of times while lost in a daydream, has dreamt saying it to her in countless different dreams. He thinks his mouth can’t help but say it now that she’s here, standing in front of him, as though all his imagined scenarios and dreams have only ever been practice for this moment.Frank and Karen meet for coffee after eight months apart.





	1. Butterflies and coffee cake

**Author's Note:**

> Immediately following Frank's story in [Loss like the sharp edges of a knife](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13273272)

He wakes up on Friday morning with buzzing in his veins and fluttering, crawling sensation in his stomach. **  
**

He tangles his fingers in his hair and pulls hard, scrubs his hand roughly over his face before sitting up in bed. The buzzing is a sensation he’s familiar with, a signal from his body to his brain that he’s spent the night dreaming about Karen even if he can’t quite remember the exact details of it.

But the sensation in his stomach is new. He thinks for a moment and realizes that the easiest way to describe it might be butterflies. Finds himself both mildly embarrassed and mildly triumphant about it – embarrassed, because it’s a feeling that he thinks he should’ve outgrown with braces and little league; triumphant, because it seems that a body that has learned to stomach as much violence and cruelty and bloodshed as he has wrought has room enough in it to still feel butterflies.

He exhales loudly and reaches over to the nightstand to check his phone. Or rather, to look at the same text message from Karen he’s been intermittently studying for the last two days. They haven’t sent anything else since that initial exchange, some unspoken agreement between the two of them, he thinks, to save all their words for when they see one another in person.

At least, that’s what he hopes it means.

He shows up early to Vigilantes, a copy of the Friday morning Bulletin and a small, brown paper wrapped package tucked under his arm . Allen perks up when he walks in, though Frank just smirks and lets Gracie off her leash so that she can pad over to Allen and the newer barista, Yaire, working the counter. He figures he can get a drink with Karen once she gets here, so he just grabs a table near the large front window, faces the direction of Karen’s apartment, sets the package to the side, and opens the paper.

Most mornings, he’ll go through the paper slowly, methodically, reading every article in order like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s not just waiting to get to Karen’s. This morning, though, he flips through the paper until he finds her name, feels his brows raise in surprise when he sees another familiar name in the lead of her article.

He gets halfway through the article and sets the paper down, is about to take out his phone and send a text to Curtis when he sees Karen at the far end of the sidewalk, walking towards him. His breath catches, and he thinks that no amount of dreaming could’ve prepared him for this moment.

She’s looking down at her phone, is almost to the door before she looks up and notices him sitting there, the cadence of her step faltering for just a moment as she meets his eyes. She lifts one hand up in front of her in a tentative hello, a wide, bright smile suddenly opening across her face. The kind of smile that makes it easy to smile in return, even as he feels his chest contract and expand suddenly around his heart, feels the butterflies in his stomach multiply a hundred times over.

She steps into the coffee shop and turns towards him, her bag draped over her shoulder with what looks to be Gracie’s Bark Box gripped in her hand. She walks over to him and puts the box down on the table, then reaches up to tuck her hair back behind her ear.

“Hey, Frank,” she says, her voice a soft mix of tenderness and affection and uncertainty, the hard syllables of his name made gentle by the sound of her voice.

Before he realizes it, he’s up and out of his chair, and he doesn’t care that the movement is abrupt, the sound of the chair scraping back loud in the nearly empty coffee shop; he doesn’t care that this isn’t what he planned to do, that he’s smiling so hard at her that it nearly makes his cheeks hurt, that only thing he can hear is the rushing of blood through his ears.

In this moment, all he cares about is her, and him, and them together, here looking at one another in the early morning sunshine. All he sees and all he knows is that she’s more than a dream or a wish or a hope – she’s real, she’s here, and she wanted to see him.

He wraps his arms around her, one arm around her waist, the other across her shoulders. There’s an almost overwhelming sense of relief in the way she doesn’t hesitate at all, the way the she immediately wraps herself around him in turn –  one arm laid across his back, the other pressed around his shoulders, her hand gently resting on the back of his neck. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, lets himself fall into this dream that isn’t a dream, this moment that eclipses all his idle daydreams. He feels her breath on his neck and there’s a shakiness to it that makes him grip her tighter, that rejoices when she tightens her grip on him in return.

The stay like that for another moment longer, breathing one another in, swaying gently in the morning light – the movement familiar and new all at once. He lets his hand lightly brush against the curtain of her hair, a movement that he’s thought about over and over again in these last eight months, a movement he can hardly believe is no longer confined to his dreams. He feels Karen take a deep breath in as he does, feels her own fingers graze the curling hair at the back of his neck.

She loosens her grip on him and steps back just far enough to look him in the eye, but still close enough that he can see the way she inhales – like she’s steadying herself – before she speaks.

“It’s good to see you, Frank.”

He nods, takes a deep breath in.

What he means to say next is: you look well, and then grin because he knows she’ll catch the allusion; or else, it’s good to see you, because it is – even if those words seem wholly understated for this moment.

What he says instead is: “You look beautiful,” then freezes, because that’s exactly what he didn’t mean to say.

The words roll off his tongue easily, like he’s said them a hundred different times. He guesses that, in a way, he has. Has imagined saying it to her dozens of times while lost in a daydream, has dreamt saying it to her in countless different dreams. He thinks his mouth can’t help but say it now that she’s here, standing in front of him, as though all his imagined scenarios and dreams have only ever been practice for this moment.

They’re still halfway wrapped up in one another, one of his arms around her waist, her hand still resting against the back of his neck. He’s near enough still that he can hear her breath catch as he says those words to her, the way her eyes widen as the words land.

Close enough that he can hear the heavy cadence of her heart as it speeds up, so close that he can’t actually tell whether the beat of it is his or hers. The sound of it seems to get louder as the silence stretches between them, as the the anxiety in his chest folds in on itself and starts to become panic.

Then, she smiles, and he feels the tightness in his chest loosen. She’s looking at him with unfiltered openness and warmth, her smile shot through with obvious, undeserved affection. For a moment, he forgets where he is, forgets what he just said – just lets himself fall into it, never wants to climb back out.

She bites down on her lip, flicks her eyes up above his.

“I like your hair,” she finally says, her fingertips brushing up the back of his head before she drops her hand and steps away from him, that same soft smile still on her face. “The scruff too,” she adds, and he tries not to be disappointed that she doesn’t reach out and brush her hand against his roughened cheek, too. “It’s not quite as hipster as before,” she says, a teasing lilt to her words. “Looks good on you, Frank.”

He pulls his hand away from her waist, tries to make the action more casual than reluctant, then runs his fingers through his hair.

“Yeah, you know – really didn’t wanna be a called a hipster again.” He grins at her. “But I figured I should at least make an effort not to look like, uh, me, you know, when I go to a coffee shop that serves a drink called The Punisher.”

She gives him a close lipped smile.

“We didn’t have to come here, you know. I would’ve gone anywhere to see you.”

He shrugs, looks away from her momentarily so that she doesn’t see the effect those words have on him, the way they cause guilt and tenderness to curl up together in the center of his chest.

"Nah, I like it here.” He glances over at her and clears his throat. “Coffee’s good.” He lifts the corner of his mouth in a half-smile before he turns towards the counter and calls out Gracie’s name. Glances over at Karen as Gracie comes out from behind the counter, then pads right over to Karen and sits down in front of her.

Karen drops down to one knee.

“Hi girl, it’s good to finally meet you,” she says softly, scratching behind Gracie’s ears, then running her hands over Gracie’s head as she looks up at him. “Oh, Frank. She’s even cuter in person.”

Gracie stretches her neck out and gives Karen a slobbery kiss right on the lips just as she says that, which makes Karen splutter and him chuckle.

“Yeah, saw that one coming,” he says, grinning while Karen pulls a face at him and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Guess you’re not used to dogs?”

She gives Gracie one last scratch behind the ears before she stands up and shakes her head.

“I always wanted one but…uh, no. We never had one growing up.” She gives him a tight smile, then gestures to the counter. “Wanna get a drink?”

He nods, walks over to the counter in step with her, tries not to notice when their hands brush up against one another.

Allen smiles widely at the two of them, bounces up and down on his toes.

“Hey Pete, hey Karen! Good morning to you both! What can I get for you guys?”

“The usual, Allen.”

Allen does a finger gun in his direction, clicks his tongue.

“And is that gonna be an 8 ounce or a 12 ounce Punisher, Pete?”

“8.”

Frank looks over at Karen, who’s grinning at him, an expression he might describe as glee on her face. He gives her a flat look, but can’t help the way his mouth twitches upwards in a barely suppressed smile before he gestures towards the counter and steps back so she can order.

“Fr – Pete.” She clears her throat. “You – you don’t – .”

He shakes his head, gives her a rueful smile.

“Least I can do, right?”

Karen huffs a laugh, then nods.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She smiles at Allen, glances over at Frank with a sly grin before she orders. “I’ll take a 12 ounce Luke Cage and one of those cranberry orange scones.”

Allen gives her a thumbs up.

“You got it!”

He hands Allen his debit card while Yaire grabs a scone for Karen.

“Alright, drinks will be out in a second, you two!” Allen grins at them, somehow even more chipper than Frank usually sees him.

He nods and walks back over to their table, waits for Karen to sit down before he pulls out his chair and does the same. He doesn’t think he’s anxious, but the fact that Gracie comes over and immediately sets her head on his knee tells him otherwise. He runs his hand over the top of her head, can’t deny that he’s grateful to have something to do with his hands as he looks across the table at Karen.

She reaches up and pushes her hair back behind her ear, rests her hand underneath her chin and smiles at him.

“It’s gonna take me a while to get used to calling you Pete.”

He tries not to grimace. It’s vaguely off-putting hearing that name from her. He’s only ever been honest with Karen, has only ever been himself with her – can’t, he now thinks, be anything but. But Pete is a name that belongs to another, second life – one that’s never known the scent of gunpowder, that’s rooted in half-truths and benign deceptions

“You don’t have to – call me that, I mean.” He clears his throat. “It’s not – I don’t –.”

He sighs heavily and looks down at his hands, glares at them like they’re the ones responsible for him being unable to say outloud what he wants.

He startles at Karen’s touch, her fingertips lightly grazing the back of his hand. She’s leaning forward slightly, her hair falling across her face, and he has close his hand tightly into a fist to keep himself from reaching up and brushing it back behind her ear.

“I’m not gonna stop calling you Frank.” She glances around the coffee shop before looking back at him and grinning. “I just need to make sure I don’t do it while we’re standing in a coffee shop that has a bunch of posters of you while you order an eight ounce Punisher.”

He lifts the corner of his mouth in a small smile and nods.

“Fair enough.”

His voice comes out rougher than he intends, every part of him acutely aware of the fact that her fingers are still resting against the back of his hand, that it would only take a few slight movements for him to turn his hand over and wrap her fingers in his. He looks down at where their hands are touching, slowly unclenches his fist, his thumb hovering above her hand and –

“Pete, Karen, your drinks are – ow!” Allen breaks off suddenly, turns and looks at Yaire, who’s standing behind Allen with an irritated expression on her face. Allen turns and looks at her, confused, while she just rolls her eyes and hisses something under her breath. The two of them have a short but heated whisper fight where Allen is clearly on the defensive. Frank can’t hear a word of it but doesn’t envy the poor kid for whatever it is he’s done wrong.

He glances over at Karen, both her hands now folded on top of one another across the table from him, an amused look on her face.

“I’ll go get our drinks for us,” he says. “Make sure Allen is ok.”

She smiles, nods at him while she reaches down to pet Gracie, rests one hand on top of the box in the corner of the table.

“I’ll give you both your gifts when we have our drinks.”

He nods, then walks over to the counter and grabs the two drinks.

“Hey, man, I’m really, really sorry about that!” Allen says in a low voice, an apologetic look on his face.

Frank tilts his head.

“For what?”

Allen rocks back on his heels, gestures in the direction of their table and gives an exaggerated grimace.

“Interrupting your, you know – .” He leans in closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “Your moment you were having with Karen.” He glances back to where Yaire is standing, who just shakes her head at him and rolls her eyes. He looks back at Frank and chews on the corner of his lip. “I didn’t even really notice until Yaire pointed it out, but then, yeah. You know? You know.”

He blinks rapidly, and there’s a long-forgotten sensation in his cheeks that he thinks might be a blush.

“Ah, jeez.” He clears his throat, glances over to where Karen’s sitting, then back at Allen. “It wasn’t – we weren’t – it’s not.” He shakes his head and sighs heavily. “Don’t worry about it, Allen.”

Allen leans back, nods earnestly.

“So, it’s cool? You’re cool? We’re cool? Everything’s – .”

Frank holds a hand out, palm flat, makes a slicing motion.

“Everything’s cool, Allen.”

Allen breathes a sigh of relief just as Yaire comes up behind him.

“Here, Pete,” she says, thrusting a dish with a large pastry on it at him.

He squints at it, then looks up at her.

“This is…what, exactly?”

“This,” she says, flourishing her hand around it, “is a fresh out of the oven maple butter coffee cake.”

He tilts his head, brows furrowed.

“And I want this why?”

She pushes it aggressively towards him.

"Because it’s awesome, it’s hot and it’s free.” He gives her a flat look and raises a brow. She rolls her eyes. “And because it happens to be Karen’s favorite.”

He purses his lips, files that fact away for himself.

“She already has a pastry, though.”

Yaire shakes her head at him.

“She’ll just throw that in her purse, forget that she has it, not eat all day, then take it out and eat it sometime tonight when she comes in here to do work.” Yaire shakes her head, lets out a long suffering sigh. “Like she always does.”  

He frowns at that.

Yaire nods, then waves the coffee cake around in front of him, wiggles her fingers above her head.

“But this is hot and it’s her favorite and it’s big enough for the two of you to share.” She glares at Allen, who shrinks back under the force of it. “Think of it as an apology for this asshole ruining your moment.”

He drops his head, rests his chin on his chest and sighs. He thinks about protesting, but then just ends up looking back up and nodding wearily, shifting both drinks to one hand and grabbing the plate with his now freed hand. Because apparently this is his life now – a bunch of college-aged kids giving him free pastries in some well-meaning attempt to help him with Karen.

He blinks as that thought crosses his mind, feels a tug at the corner of his mouth. Because, yeah, this is his life now – and he thinks it’s not a bad one, all things considered.

Thinks it’s actually a pretty fucking good one.

So he smooths out the furrow between his brows and gives the two kids behind the counter a real smile, teeth and all. Considers maybe smiling at them more often since they both seem confused – Allen actually looks borderline worried – at the gesture.

“Nothing was ruined.” He clears his throat, glances back over at Karen. She tilts her head when she sees the dish in his hand, then perks up immediately when she sees what it is, a grin on her face that seems almost gleeful.

“See?” Yaire says smugly behind him. “I told you, Pete. That’s gonna score you major points.”

He huffs a laugh.

“I think I’m doing alright.”

“Absolutely!” Allen says with a thumbs up while Yaire just looks at him with a deeply skeptical look that makes him both want laugh out loud and – very briefly and with more than a little embarrassment – want to ask why she seems so doubtful.

He does neither, just nods at her and lifts the plate slightly up.

“I appreciate the coffee cake, Yaire. Thank you.”

She nods.

“You’re welcome. Now, go make good use of it, Pete!” She says with a ferocious whisper before turning back around and heading back to the front counter. Allen just looks at him with a look that’s halfway between apologetic and encouraging before he turns and follows Yaire.

Frank looks at them both for a moment longer and chuckles inwardly to himself before turning back to his shared table with Karen.

“Everything alright?” She asks, gesturing to the empty space where Yaire and Allen just stood.

He sets down their drinks and the coffee cake before taking a seat.

“Yeah, they’re just – ah, you know.” He  licks his lips, lifts one shoulder up in a half-shrug. “They’re good kids.”

It’s not really any answer – not any sort of explanatory one, anyway – but Karen just takes it and nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, they are. I come here after work a lot to – .” She gives a small laugh and shakes her head. “Well, to work more, I guess. If Yaire’s working, she always brings me a sandwich, or a tart – whatever they have that’s actually food and not just a pastry.” She looks down at the coffee cake between them and smiles. “Though speaking of pastries, this is my absolute favorite thing they make here.”

He smiles at her smiling down at the pastry.

“Yeah, Yaire mentioned it.” He gestures to it. “Said it was hot – right of the oven, too.”

Her smile widens as she tears off a piece of the cake and pops it into her mouth, grins delightedly at him once she’s finished it.  

“In college, I used to go and study all the time at this little cafe that was right next to the art building. The coffee was pretty crappy but they had the best maple butter coffee cake. And, I mean, this was Vermont, so nearly every coffee shop had some kind of maple butter pastry.” She breaks off another piece of the cake and eats it. “But I have to say this is now the best maple butter coffee cake I’ve ever had,” she says, her mouth still half full.

He grins, then reaches over at takes a piece of it, pops it in his mouth and chews thoughtfully, thinks about how much more he now knows about Karen even in just this small amount of time, about all the thousands of things he still wants to know about her.

Karen raises an eyebrow at him when he’s done, and he just grins wider and extends a flattened palm out in front of him.

“It’s pretty good.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Then again, I don’t really have much to compare it to – never been to Vermont.”

Karen clears her throat and looks away from him, though he doesn’t miss the way her smile tightens at the edges as she does.

“You’re not missing much. Or – or anything, really.”

He takes another drink and shifts in his chair, takes the opportunity to study her expression a little closer.

“But it’s home to you, right?”

Karen chews on her top lip and shrugs, looks down at the coffee cake as she takes another piece.

“It used to be.” She glances up at him, brushes the hair back from her face and looks back down at the remaining coffee cake. “There’s not really anything there for me anymore.”

He nods slowly, makes note of the flicker of sadness he saw in her eyes, takes care to back slowly away from the topic even as he files it away to think about later. He tilts his head down, waits for her to meet his eyes. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he says, the words quiet, the tone steady.

She smiles at him, soft and warm and equally steady.

“Me too.”


	2. Bark boxes and bracelets

Gracie gives a soft whine next to them, brushes her nose up against Karen’s hand.

She laughs, reaches down with both hands and scratches Gracie behind the ears before she drops her head down and gives her a kiss between her ears.

“We’re glad you’re here too, Gracie,” she says, the sound of laughter still in her voice. And while he knows that it can’t possibly be true, he thinks he’s never been so grateful to Gracie as he is right now – for the way she’s broken up the lingering sadness in Karen’s gaze, the way she’s allowed him to hear the sound of Karen’s voice when it’s been dipped in laughter.

Karen straightens back up and smiles at him, reaches across the table for the Bark Box.

“She can probably smell the treats that are in here.”

He shakes his head.

“Nah, she just likes you.”

Karen tips her head down, glances at him through her lashes with small smile before she opens the box.

Gracie to her credit – and to the credit of many hours of training – doesn’t immediately go for the box despite how strongly the smell of salmon jerky is. She just looks intently between the box and Karen, her ears up, her tail wagging, until Karen laughs and reaches for one of the packages.

“Can I?” She asks before opening it.

“Course.”

Karen opens one of the packages and takes out a salmon jerky treat for Gracie, who takes it from her hand gently and then lays down and immediately starts working at it beside the table.

He glances inside the box.

“Looking for your gift?” Karen asks with a teasing smile.

He grins.

“Nah – just curious what the theme is.”

“Oh, it’s, um –.” She rifles through the box. “It’s ‘Summer in the City’ apparently, so Gracie gets a little sun chew toy.” She holds up a sun soft chew toy in front of him. “And a, uh, skyscraper chew toy,” she finishes up, holding up the other toy in front of her and smiling.

“And, uh.” He tilts his to the side and grins at her. “What do I get?”

She laughs, and it makes something in his chest contract – the knowledge that he can make her laugh, the opportunity he has to do so.

“I thought you were just curious about what the theme was.”

He shrugs.

“I was, but then you mentioned a gift, so…”

She laughs again and he thinks about how much more he wants to hear it, how much he wants to be the one that draws it from her. She grabs a small, brown paper wrapped package from the back of the box and hands it to him.

He opens it and takes out a vivid blue-green t-shirt, the shape of a whale tail diving into the water illustrated in pale gold – an understated tribute to Moby Dick, a novel even he can admit is anything but.

He loves it immediately.

He looks up to find Karen chewing on the corner of her lip and watching him carefully.

“I was gonna get you handwraps or something, you know, something a little more practical and I, um – I know it’s not a color that you usually wear but I –.” She bites her bottom lip and smiles nervously at him, shrugs a shoulder. “I just saw it and thought of you.”

Even if he didn’t like the shirt at all, that simple phrase would be enough to change his mind.

“Thank you, Karen.” His fingers tap across the soft fabric of the shirt as he stares intently at her. “For the shirt, for reading Moby Dick. It’s – I’m. I –uh – know it’s more than I –.”

“Frank,” she interrupts, reaching across the table to rest her fingertips against his knuckles. “Stop.” She gives him a small smile that’s soft around the edges. “I’m just glad you like the shirt. Or, you know, are at least pretending to like it.”

He huffs a laugh.

“I really do like it.” He looks down at the table, at where her fingers are still barely grazing the ridges of his hand. Can feel the warmth of her leaking into his skin, each slight point of contact like an engraving on his skin. He takes a small, short breath, then slowly, by inches, shifts his hand until it’s open under hers. He waits, the seconds dragging on, a breath or two for her to withdraw her hand from his if she wants.

She doesn’t. Instead, shifts forward ever so slightly, so that her hand rests fully on top of his. He folds his fingers over the edges of hers, traces his thumb over the contours of her knuckles, his breath hitching as he does.

It seems like a small miracle.

It feels a little bit like resurrection.

He looks up at her, falls into the bright blue of her eyes, traces the curves of her cheek, follows the slight upturn of her lips. He forces himself away from shape of her lips, very deliberately shuts off the line of thinking that’s wondering at their softness. Bites down hard on his lower lip and says the first neutral thing that comes to his mind before he does something truly idiotic like reach across the table and kiss her.

“How’d you know I’d gotten back into boxing?”

She tilts her head down and clears her throat before she answers.

“Um, Curtis mentioned it when I – when I went to go see him.” She seems breathy and uncertain. He feels her fingers twitch in his, and he slowly draws wide figure eight patterns across her skin in what he hopes is a soothing motion. He thinks it must be – her fingers go still, her voice becomes steadier.“He talked about you and him and David going out to get a celebratory drink after one of your fights.”

He nods, looks down at their clasped hands, then back up at her.

“I’m sorry, Karen,” he says quietly, without any preamble. “I shouldn’t’ve – I should’ve.” He shakes his head, blows out a breath. “I was an asshole,” he finally says with a rueful smile.

She looks down at their hands, worries her top lip with her teeth. When she looks up at him, it’s with an expression so sad and lonely that for a moment he wants to kick his own ass for being responsible for putting it there.

“I was…I thought maybe I’d…”

"It was nothing that you did,” he says firmly, making sure to meet her eyes. “Nothing. That was all just me being a piece of shit.”

She makes a small noise that might be a laugh, might be a sigh.

“I was worried about you, Frank.”

“I know.” He squeezes her hand. “Curt said as much.” He pauses, gives Karen a small grin. “Right after he called me a wallowing asshole.”

The corner of her mouth lifts in a slow, small half smile.

“Yeah? And what’d he say after that?”

“He called me an asshole again.”

Karen laughs, leans forward and tucks her hair back behind her ear with her free hand before resting it underneath her chin.

“I was, right?” He ducks his head down to look at her. “I was being one to you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, kind of.” She runs her tongue over teeth, then shakes her head, gives him a rueful look. “No, actually, very.” She tilts her head as she looks hard at him. “Three weeks is a long time to read a book you’ve already read a few times, Frank.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I, uh, I just…I needed to straighten a few things out in my head.” He looks down and frowns, feels Karen’s hand go slack in his. It’s nothing close a satisfying answer. It’s nothing even approaching what she deserves to know.

So he takes a deep breath and clears his throat, eyes darting between their hands and her gaze, both unable to keep looking or look away.

“I wanted to see you, Karen.” He pauses for a long moment, looks down at their clasped hands. Feels Karen slowly brush her thumb across the edges of his fingertips. Grounds himself in the sensation of it and forces himself to look up at her, finds comfort in the softness of her gaze. “Not when - not just when I finished Moby Dick, but before that, even. Every time I left something at your window, I just – I would…I had to tell myself not to just sit around and wait for you to get home, see you in person, you know?”

One side of her mouth curve ups in a small half smile as she nods.

“Yeah, I can –.” She nods again, slower this time. "You could’ve, Frank. Whenever you wanted.”

He looks away from her, chews on the corner of his lip.

"Remember what you said to me?” He glances over at her, sees the confused furrow between her brows, the firm press of her lips. “That night – the one at the bridge. About –.”

“After,” she finishes up quietly. “For you.”

He nods at her, licks his lips, glances between her gift, then Gracie, then back up at her.

“That’s what I was trying to build or – or, figure out, at least. I wanted – I thought that.” He looks back down and sighs heavily, tries to sort out the thoughts in his mind. “I needed to know that I could. That I had –.”

He stops abruptly and swallows back the rest of his sentence, the words something to offer you getting stuck in his throat, too painful or too raw or too heavy in the brightness of the day.

“That I had something inside of me that wasn’t just a war,” he says instead, which is close enough to the truth without being what he meant to say.

“You do, Frank,” Karen says, leaning closer to him, her other hand now reaching across the table to wrap around their clasped fingers. “I know you do. I knew that even before Moby Dick – even before any of the gifts.”

He takes a deep, sharp breath in and can’t help the way that his hand tightens around hers – doesn’t know if it’s to bring himself closer to her, or to force himself to stay where he’s seated. Because there’s nothing but belief in her gaze and conviction in her words. Nothing but the knowledge that Karen has always looked at him and seen the things he himself has trouble believing in – goodness and honor and possibility; a life beyond grief, a future without bloodshed.

He swallows thickly.

“That war, Karen – being the Punisher, doing what I did. I thought…it seemed like the only way.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, simply looks down at Karen’s hands wrapped around his, the softness of her skin gentle against hands rough and calloused by years of war and violence.

“The only way to what, Frank?” Karen asks quietly, her fingertips brushing over the back of his hand.

He looks up at her.

“The only way to remember them.”

The silence settles heavily between them. Then, she pulls her top lip in between her teeth, lets out a shaky breath.

“Do you remember when we first met?”

He squints at her, tilts his head in confusion.

“When I was shooting at Grotto?”

She laughs, and he thinks about what a strange story theirs is – that this is a statement that makes her laugh when it might horrify anyone else. When it probably should horrify her.

She shakes her head, the ghost of a grin still lingering on her lips.

“The second time we met, then – in the hospital room.”

He nods.

“They had that tape around my bed – the one no one was supposed to cross.” He lifts the corner of his mouth as the memory surfaces in his mind. “But that didn’t mean shit to you.”

She breathes out a laugh, looks down at their clasped hands then back up at him.

“I wasn’t – I just –.” She shrugs. “You were strapped down, you looked like hell.”

“I felt like hell. Kitchen Irish didn’t go down easy.”

She gives him a long, heavy look.

“I gave you that picture,” she says quietly, and he drops his head down, has to close his eyes at the memory of that moment. Because he can still remember the feeling of it – the sensation of holding a tangible memory of before, the sharp pain of knowing that it could now only exist in memory.

And underneath it all, the hum of gratitude that someone cared enough to bring it to him, to give it back to him, however painful it might be.

“It was the one of Maria and Lisa and Frank Junior – the one of the at the carousel,” Karen continues, her words soft, her tone gentle. “And you – .”

“Thanked you.” He looks up at her. “I thanked you for helping me to remember.”

She nods slowly.

“I never want you to forget them, Frank. Never. They deserve to be remembered.” She tips her head to the side. “But there are a lot of ways to remember the people that we love. It doesn’t have to be alone.”

Her eyes are filled with compassion and kindness and warmth, the color of the sky on a cloudless, sunny morning.

He thinks back to that day, to that moment when Karen handed him that photo. To even the moment before it – sharing stories of cookies hidden away, of steps through a house he’d never really been able to go back to.

He thinks of that moment now as a dividing line in this new life of his – before that moment, and after it. He thinks, in a way, that each moment with Karen has been a series of new lines drawn, different demarcations, numerous sets of before and after. He thinks that the after he’s built up to now was only ever meant to be another before, because he now cannot imagine an after without her in it.

She’s tipped her head down to meet his gaze, hair falling across her face, and in that moment all he can think of is that he really, really wants to know what it feels like to run his fingertips down the length of it.

Before he can process what he’s doing, he’s already reaching out, already brushing the long band of hair between his thumb and forefinger, tucking the strand behind her ear – letting the back of his thumb lightly graze the curve of her ear.

This, too, he thinks wildy, his heart fluttering at the sound of her stuttered sigh, marks another new line drawn – another before, another after.

“I –.” The word comes out rough, almost gutteral, hammered through by the beating of his heart, at odds with the softness of her skin underneath his fingertips. He drops his hand back down to the table and clears his throat. “I, uh, I don’t want to – to be – to do it. Alone.” It’s a stuttering, stammering mess of a sentence, and he’s almost tempted to drop his head down and growl aloud in frustration. But then Karen smiles at him, bright and hopeful and so fucking beautiful that he forgets to be annoyed with himself, instead finds himself wholly preoccupied with the shape of her mouth, the curve of her jaw.

“You won’t have to, Frank.” Her fingertips press into his skin, her thumb skimming against his, the sensation of it sinking into his veins. “Okay?”

He lets out a long exhale, then nods.

“Okay.”

She tilts her head, an almost wistful look in her eyes as the corner of her mouth turns up.

“Okay.”

A simple word, but his mouth tugs up in a smile to hear it, too. Because he remembers this same exchange, all those months ago – remembers the uncertainty that hung in the air, the hesitation in his steps and in his words and in his chest.

But that was before, he thinks. In this after, there is no hesitation, no uncertainty. There is only the feel of Karen’s hands wrapped around his and the conviction intertwined in those two syllables.

He leans back in his chair, his grip on Karen’s hand suddenly less of a grounding force, less of a lifeline – because it now it doesn’t have to be. Because now it can be simply be what the rest of the world around them sees – the easiness between two ordinary people, wanting only to be connected, to be closer to one another. A movement only imaginable in this after, still slightly incredible to him.

He breathes out a laugh, an incredulous sound more than an amused one.

“Thank you, Karen.” She tilts her head to the side, a furrow between her brows. “For – for understanding what I mean,” he says. “For wanting to –.” He worries at his bottom lip for a moment as he turns the words over in his mind. “For wanting to see me still even though – even after everything.”

“Frank. Of course.” She tips her head to the side and gives him a look that might almost be teasing. “Can I ask – what…what helped you figure it out?”

He taps his finger on the tabletop, looks down and scratches some nonsense pattern into the plastic.

“Curt – he, uh…he’s always been good at helping me work through my shit.” He looks back up at her, feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips. “He also threatened to kick my ass a few times, so.” He shrugs.

Karen chuckles.

“Yeah? I knew I liked him.”

“He likes you.” He shakes his head, gives her a rueful smile. “I think more than he likes me sometimes.”

She chuckles.

“Are you sure? He had a lot of good things to say about you when I saw him."She bites down on her lip before she gives him a look that’s part grimace, part grin. "And I wasn’t, um – well, I wasn’t exactly at my best when I saw him.”

He pulls his lips in between his teeth, looks back down at the table.

“Because of me?” He asks, the words halting because the simple fact of it being a possibility makes him feel like shit.

Karen squeezes his hand, waits for him to look back up at her.

“Because of a lot of things, Frank.” She smiles at him, small and genuine and a little bit teasing. And even though she doesn’t say it, he thinks he can hear what she means to say anyway: That he’s important in her life, but not the only important thing. He looks away and coughs a laugh, is both embarrassed at the presumption and glad that he’s at least only partially to blame. Remembers his promise to himself to be the one who asks about her story, who never stops asking. Commits himself to understanding what these last eight months have been for her, to what her life has been stretched out before it.

Karen clears her throat, breaking him out of his reverie. She smiles.

“It is good to see you though, Frank. I’m glad you stopped being a wallowing asshole.”

He nods, then clears his throat.

“I – uh – have something for you, too.” He reaches down to grab a small, wrapped package that’s stowed away next to his feet.

She brightens at the sight of it, her hands leaving his as he pushes the gift across the table at her.

She unwraps the package, sees another, smaller wrapped gift lying on top of a carefully folded shirt. She glances up at him as she sets it aside, then unfolds the shirt and lifts it up in front of her.

It’s a plain gray shirt with Ezekiel Animal Shelter written in bold lettering on the front, the outline of a seated dog next to it.

“That shelter – it’s the one that I got Gracie at. And – uh – I just got hired there – recently. Well, yesterday.” He glances over at Gracie, gives her a few pets. “I’m on for just maintenance and repairs right now, but Mrs. Abaya – she runs the shelter – she’s training me to be a dog trainer.”

She sets the shirt down on the table and smiles widely at him.

“That makes sense – you’ve done a great job with Gracie.”

“Yeah, though, you know, to be fair – she’s easy to train.”

“Or maybe you’re just that good.”

He grins at her, then shrugs.

“Maybe.” He motions towards the shirt. “It’s not as nice as the one you gave me – uh, either of them – but I thought, you know…wanted you to have one.”

She grips the shirt, moves it closer to her chest.

“Thank you, Frank. I’m glad to have one.” She tips her head to the side and smiles. “Any place that took care of a dog as nice as Gracie and had the sense to hire you is a place I want to support.”

He licks his lips and smiles at her, feels a soft trill of apprehension as she picks up the smaller wrapped gift.

He sees her squint down at it before she slips her finger underneath the taped edge and lifts it up, slowly folds back the rest of the edges.

In the middle of the plain brown paper is a long, thin bracelet of braided cloth, dark blue and black, the ends attached with a simple black buckle.

She picks it up and looks at it, then over at him, a pensive look on her face.

“Is this…?” She glances down at Gracie, then at him.

He nods. It’s a simple gesture, thrown together almost at the last minute. But the smallness of it, the simplicity is at odds with meaning behind it – the depth and breadth and width of it. He reaches over with his palm outstretched, hopes he can even at least begin to describe the shape of it all if he can focus on her rather on his own anxiety over what he wants and means to say.

“May I?”

She looks at him, then nods – drops the bracelet into his hand and extends her right wrist out to him.

“Emeline – she’s Mrs. Abaya’s granddaughter,” he begins as he rests the bracelet on top of her wrist, long ends stretching out on either side of her arm. “She spends a lot of time at the shelter, helping out after school, on weekends sometimes when she doesn’t have soccer.” He loops the ends of the bracelet around her wrist once. “She helps me a lot around the shelter – fixing things, taking care of the dogs – just a good kid.” He loops the bracelet around her wrist a second time. “She’s really into making bracelets right now – just – uh – a phase, I guess. Or, I don’t know, maybe not. But I just know she loves making 'em. ” He buckles the strap on her bracelet.

“That ok?”

She lifts her hand and shakes her wrist, sets it back down in front of him.

“Maybe a little tighter.” He nods, unbuckles the strap. “How old is she?”

“8 – almost 9,” he says as he slips the buckle into the next hole.

She smiles at him and nods.

“That seems about right – for getting into making jewelry, I mean. I did too around that age.”

He nods, taps the top of bracelet.

“That too tight?”

She shakes her head.

“No, that’s perfect.”

He nods, brushes his fingertips just underneath the bracelet, tracing a line into her skin. He’s quiet for a long moment.

“I had Mrs. Abaya cut a few strips from Gracie’s bandana yesterday, then I had Emeline make a bracelet with them.” He stills his fingers against her skin, slides his hand slowly down her wrist, the back of her hand. Edges his fingertips along the ridges of her knuckles, then shifts his hand until it’s under her own, wraps his fingers around each of hers. He takes it as a good sign that she squeezes his hand, the pressure of it pushing him to go on.

“I’m sorry it took me three weeks to see you. After – after you asked, I mean.” He looks up at her. “I’m sorry for…eight months is a lot time, yeah? It’s – it’s –.”

Karen lifts a shoulder up.

“It’s what you needed, Frank.”

“Yeah…yeah, it was but I…” He looks away from her, looks down at their hands, licks his lips before looking back up at her. “I was always thinking of you. I didn’t want to just disappear on you again – like before.”

He reaches across the table with his other hand, traces the edges of where the bracelet meets her skin.

“You were right, you know.” He tilts his head, looks away at some distance point, falls into a distant memory for a moment. “That night at the bridge – when you said that all I was…that all I had was loneliness. I was…I thought I was fine being alone. Honest to God, I did.” He takes a deep breath in and glances at her. “Then for a while – I didn’t know what I needed…or wanted.” He breathes out sharply, sits up straight and looks at her intently. “But, now…”

Karen leans forward, her voice soft.

“Now what, Frank?”

He swallows thickly, licks his lips.

“I want this,” he says quietly. “I want to meet you for coffee and walk you to work in the morning and watch you spoil Gracie. I want to know about the third best maple coffee cake you’ve ever had and what your favorite flowers are and to hear you tell me to stop being an asshole in person instead of on paper.

It takes a moment before she realizes what he’s talking about. Once she does, she laughs – loud and clear and more attractive than it has a right to be.

"Well, now I don’t want to.”

He shrugs, a smirk on his face.

“Give it time.”

She laughs again.

His smirk softens into a smile.

“I want…I want this, Karen. Me and you and Gracie.”

Karen smiles at him, and it’s wide and bright and so achingly beautiful. He thinks it’s probably more than he deserves, too, but finds that he almost doesn’t mind. Finds himself instead wanting to be the type of man who does, thinking of all the ways in which he might be.

“So, I guess that means you’ll have to take another picture, then – with you wearing your shirt and Gracie in her bandana.” She looks down and reaches over table with her other hand, follows the line of the bracelet until their fingertips touch. Looks up at him and grins. “That way, I can be in it this time. ”

A slow smile blooms across his features.

“Guess so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! The next chapter or two won't be updated until Karen's POV fic -- which will cover the last eight months -- is completed, so that will be at least a few weeks. 
> 
> On the plus side, I'm super excited to release Karen's POV fic -- titled "Lips more scar tissue than skin" -- in the coming weeks and hope that you follow along! It's meant to be a companion piece [Loss like the sharp edges of a knife](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13273272) and let us know what she's been up to while Frank's been rebuilding his life, as well as some of her backstory. Hope to see y'alls comments on there! :)


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